Line of students inside hallway

Biden wins Michigan primary; state’s new voting laws get test

Former Vice President Joe Biden was projected to win today’s Michigan Democratic primary as the state tried out its new voting rules. Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign got a lift in the 2016 Michigan primary, found 2020 to be deflating.

East Lansing, including MSU students who were registered on campus, also faced questions about renewing property taxes that support the Capital Area Transportation Authority, Ingham County parks and trails, Potter Park Zoo, special education services and county health care services.

College student indoors

Democratic primary upends familiar family vote pattern

Young voters will go to this year’s polls with information they’ve obtained through their experiences, their peers and maybe even their parents. Will they follow their parents, or rebel? Christopher Ojeda, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, studies that. He did a study called “Accounting for the Child in the Transmission of Party Identification,” in 2015. He said household party affiliation can make it easier for young voters to decide. But affiliations might not be helpful in this Democratic primary. 

“In a general election when there are two candidates … it’s kind of easy for kids to use the party identification to make decisions about who to support,” he said.